


Settle the score (Can't take it no more)

by SquaresAreNotCircles



Category: due South
Genre: Buddy Breathing, Closets, First Kiss, Fluff and Humor, M/M, Post-Episode: s03e12 Mountie on the Bounty, but that's just being canon compliant i suppose, silliness
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-22
Updated: 2019-02-22
Packaged: 2019-11-02 03:02:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,985
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17879864
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SquaresAreNotCircles/pseuds/SquaresAreNotCircles
Summary: “You know, Fraser,” he starts anyway, because he’s always found that when he gets unsure it’s best to just barrel ahead blindly and hope nobody dies, which seems unlikely here, anyway, “the way I see it, we gotta be even, right, for this partnership to work?”Fraser looks at him curiously. “Do you feel there’s some imbalance in our relationship, Ray?”Or: Ray gets bogged down in the details of almost drowning, so he and Fraser have a talk about it, among other things, in the supply closet.





	Settle the score (Can't take it no more)

**Author's Note:**

> Hello there, new fandom! I recently stumbled across Mountie on the Bounty and after having watched that and feeling delightfully confused but charmed for ninety minutes, I started watching seasons 3 and 4 from the beginning. I’m getting around to 1 and 2 right now and I love those too, but so far, I’m still hooked on Fraser/RayK, because, I mean, buddy breathing, duh. Among many, many other things, but… _buddy breathing_. Holy shit, that’s not subtle.
> 
> So here’s a fic that’s not very subtle either, because when I have !!! feelings about things they often spill out in the form of unrepentant fluff (and there are many !!! feelings in this case, because. BUDDY BREATHING). This is set post-Mountie on the Bounty but presumably somewhere pre-Call of the Wild, because the guys still work together in Chicago.
> 
> The title is a line from the song _Settle the Score_ by Cookin’ On 3 Burners.

So all that stuff happens, right? And it’s over quick – bang, splash, fire extinguisher, and suddenly they’re on this huge sailboat in the middle of the Great Lakes. Well, there was a tiny submersible somewhere in between, and a couple hours that Ray spent plastered to Fraser’s back and almost buzzing out of his skin with frustration and unnamed other emotions while he watched beads of sweat drip down the long lines of Fraser’s neck one by one, but that’s getting into the details.

Problem is, those details? Ray has a hard time letting go of them, after the whole ordeal is over.

Because that’s what it should be – over. They both get offered transfers and then the pirate kookiness happens and they save the world from an environmental disaster or something, but more importantly they decide that their partnership will continue to live another day. Which is great. It really is. It’s greatness, because sure, Ray knows he yells sometimes and Fraser does the thing with the tease and the eyes that’s just unfair, but on the whole, they work pretty damn good together.

But the _details_ , they’re there, suddenly, all the way at the front of Ray’s mind. He’s managed just fine not thinking about them too much for the past however long it’s been since he first became Ray Vecchio and set eyes on Fraser. He’d like to keep it that way, thank you very much, except suddenly it’s a lot harder than it used to be. It has something to do with almost drowning, and Fraser’s hands framing his face and Fraser’s lips on-

Yeah. Details. Of the kind that Ray’s been blowing so out of proportion that they kind of don’t feel like details at all anymore. They kind of feel like life or death now, possibly, which is ironic because that’s exactly what it was in the first place and exactly the reason why it didn’t mean anything and he should seriously just let it go and stop obsessing.

But hey, it’s not like telling himself _stop letting this one thing you can’t have consume your entire life and be happy instead_ has been a very successful strategy for him, historically speaking. Stella knows all about that. Stella could write a book about that, probably, and soon maybe Fraser will, too, because dragging him into the supply closet at work to Talk About It seems like a pretty good start of a crazy stalker novel, to Ray.

Not that it stops him. He can obsess about that later, though, if this doesn’t work out. It’s always good to have a back-up plan.

“Fraser,” he says, now, into the complete darkness that’s all they have since he pulled the door shut behind him. Fraser is so quiet that Ray’s not entirely sure he’s not alone in here – though he can’t be, logically, because he _is_ sure that he pushed a very politely flabbergasted Mountie in here before him. He extends a hand, searching. His index finger bumps into what might be Fraser’s nose. “You there?” he whispers. There’s no real need to be quiet, because it’s not like anyone outside will hear them over the usual hustle and bustle of the police station, but it’s dark. It feels appropriate.

There’s a click and Ray has to blink against the sudden brightness. Fraser pulled the cord connected to the single bulb on the ceiling.

“Oh,” Ray says. “Right. Smart.” He drops his hand. Good thing, too, because apparently he was pretty close to poking Fraser’s eye out. Fraser A) doesn’t deserve that and 2) has far too pretty eyes to lose one in some stupid fingering accident because Ray can’t keep his hands to himself. Also, C) it would be disastrous for Ray’s mental state if Fraser started wearing an eye patch. Then he’d really never be able to stop thinking about the pirate case, and his brain has been doing a fine job of that all by itself.

With the newfound light, Ray has a perfect view of Fraser’s mildly frowning face, right in front of him. “Ray? You said there was something you wanted to discuss?”

He’s pretty sure he didn’t say “discuss”, but it’s nice of Fraser to make him sound more articulate than he is. He doesn’t recall the exact phrasing he used, but he thinks it must have been something along the lines of “Fraser, let’s do some words”. He didn’t have a whole lot of time to think about it, because Fraser had been telling Frannie some story about how Polar Bear Joe and Giant Moose Jack had kept trying to eat each other (or something, Ray wasn’t fully listening) and Frannie had been swooning and Ray had done his very best not to look like he was swooning right alongside her when it had suddenly hit him that he didn’t have to take this any longer. He needed to take charge of the situation, like one of his mom’s self-help books would have told him.

So now here they are, in the closet, right where Ray belongs. He takes a deep breath, but he breathes in mostly dust and Fraser’s neatsfoot oil scent, neither of which bring the kind of calming effect with them he was hoping for. 

“You know, Fraser,” he starts anyway, because he’s always found that when he gets unsure it’s best to just barrel ahead blindly and hope nobody dies, which seems unlikely here, anyway, “the way I see it, we gotta be even, right, for this partnership to work?”

Fraser looks at him curiously. “Do you feel there’s some imbalance in our relationship, Ray?” Ray is glad Fraser’s hat is taking a nap on Ray’s desk, somewhere on the other side of the door separating them from the rest of the world, because a hatless Fraser means a Fraser whose face he can actually see in this dim, single source lighting. 

“Yes,” he tells Fraser’s visible face, “as a matter of fact, yeah, I do. Because see, when I hit you, you hit me back.” He underscores this with a poke first to his own chest and then to Fraser’s. The guy is like a rock wall – doesn’t budge or twitch or magically get it and throw himself at Ray in a passionate manner at all.

Fraser just nods. “I did, yes. At your insistence.”

He bobs his head, too, because that was a good idea Fraser had there. “Sure, I insisted. So I’m insisting now, too.”

Fraser keeps on nodding for a bit, then stops. “On what? Neither of us has struck the other recently, to my knowledge.”

“No, not that, it’s- That thing you did, with your mouth, on the Henry Albert-”

“Henry Allen,” Fraser supplies.

Ray swats at an invisible fly with his hand. “Whatever, Allenbert, who cares. Point is, that thing you did, down there, underwater, you did that to me-” Poking chests again for emphasis, here, because it worked so well the first time. “-but I haven’t done that to you.”

“Ah,” Fraser says, but he still sounds puzzled. Which is disheartening, because Ray is starting to run out of steam and this is about as far as he’s going to get before retreating into the corner and trying to hide behind the toilet paper.

For a moment, he’s worried Fraser is going to offer to take a dive into the nearest lake so Ray will be able to breathe air into him to smooth out this newest wrinkle in their partnership.

Then Fraser’s eyes widen. “Ah!” he says, but in a tone so different that it doesn’t seem even remotely comparable to the last ‘ah’. Ray’s hope, almost lost to the sheer Canadian force of Fraser’s obliviousness, flares up again. “I see,” Fraser continues. Ray watches him thumb at his eyebrow and wonders if he actually does. “Yes, Ray, if you feel you must, ah, make that act reciprocal, then you should certainly get on that, so to speak.”

Ray looks at Fraser. Fraser looks back. Ray blinks and Fraser tilts his head a little, in a way he very well might have picked up from Dief.

“So I’m going to kiss you now,” Ray announces, just to make absolutely sure they’re actually on the same page and he isn’t about to sexually assault a Mountie who thinks he wants to practice his platonic buddy freediving techniques.

“Please do,” Fraser says, with a nod that looks more than anything like ‘what the hell are you waiting for’ to Ray. He may be mostly monolinguine, but he’s learning to speak Mountie.

That’s good enough. That’s more than good enough.

He goes for it – dives for it, really, because his life is just one long chain of ironies by now, but he doesn’t even care, because ironic or not, who gives a shit, he’s _kissing Fraser_. His lips – Ray’s, which he uses to say lots of stupid things daily – are on Fraser’s lips – Fraser, who has probably never said a truly stupid thing in his life. Fraser, who is kissing him back with more enthusiasm than skill, but only because there is one heck of a lot of enthusiasm between them, because it’s not like Fraser ever lacks in skill at anything. Ray shouldn’t even be surprised this includes kissing. He can’t honestly imagine Fraser has done it a lot, but really, what did he expect from that Mountie tongue if not a natural aptitude for making Ray go all Jell-O in the knees?

By the time they break apart – just a tiny, little bit, because Ray can’t make himself back off more than an inch or so – Ray is clutching at Fraser’s shoulders and breathing hard. He can’t remember doing the actual buddy breathing thing and letting Fraser steal his air, but he must have. Although Fraser’s breath sounds a little out of whack, too. Ray is stupidly proud of himself for that, as soon as he picks up on it.

Before he gets a chance to gloat, Fraser sneaks in another kiss. It’s just a quick peck this time, but it makes Ray grin like mad, which, face it, is probably because he is. As soon as Fraser pulls back Ray darts forward to repay him – wouldn’t do to let Fraser get ahead of him now, after all that effort he put into equalizing stuff. 

Fraser’s hands are somewhere around Ray’s waist, which seems very Mountie-like of him until he tugs to get Ray closer. Ray barely has to be asked, so he comes willingly, and somehow this leads to them ending up with their foreheads pressed together, which Ray also somehow knows is exactly what Fraser was angling for. That wordless communication thing that their partnership needed? This might be a new breakthrough.

Fraser is the first to breathe words into the sliver of space between them. “I have a feeling-”

“A good one, I hope,” Ray interrupts, because as established, he’s stupid and happy. Fraser will just have to deal with it, because he’s a trigger for both of those things.

“A feeling,” Fraser continues, “that it’s going to prove rather difficult to keep scores even in the long run.”

In the long run – Ray never would have thought four words that sound so innocent could make him want to smile like a loon. He doesn’t, though. He keeps his face straight (insofar as that’s still possible, taking recent developments into account) and nods, aiming for thoughtful. Pensive, maybe, or even cogitative, since he’s talking to Fraser and Fraser loves those fancy words. “Yeah,” Ray says. “Alright. Cut you a deal: we stop counting, and we both score.”

Fraser smiles like Ray just said something very clever. “Excellent, Ray.”

Fraser leans in again, so Ray is inclined to agree with his assessment. He’d tell Frannie to suck it, if he weren’t so hopeful that he’ll be the one doing that soon.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading! Consider leaving a comment if you can, because they're really the greatest gift you can give a fic writer. ❤
> 
> If you want to find me on Tumblr (to talk about due South, for example!) you can do so under [itwoodbeprefect](http://itwoodbeprefect.tumblr.com/).


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